Quote Originally Posted by Lundefaret View Post
The question is if we want competitive privateers in the WRC.
If we do, then they need to be given a fighting chance.
While the factory teams have three drivers all doing testing duties, and test drivers, test cars , and can develop and test new parts etc etc, a team like JipoCar has one WRC17 car which they run in both tests and rallies, and really no possibilities to develop own parts, etc. So the factory teams has all the advantages, which of course the factory teams want. So the question is again, do we want competitive privateers in the WRC?
Right now we have four strong manufacturers, and the "crisis" years of two manufacturers and one dominating driver seem long but forgotten, but this is the scenario I think we need to keep in mind when we argue for or against these things.
Good post. And I agree ... yes we want competitive privateers. But having separate regulations for privateer vs factory would open more of a can of worms than the imbalance you're trying to correct. And it wouldn't achieve any result anyway.
You'd have to go back to Group 4 days to find an era when privateers could truly be competitive with factory drivers and even then it was difficult.
There are a good many reasons for that.

Rally Power suggests that the privateers cup is the answer. I don't agree. We want as many privateers in the main game as possible. But they must play by the same rules or it become farcical.